Monday, April 4, 2016

Post Conference, New Companion, and Baptism this week!

Things are changing a lot in our sector with the arrival of Elder Duke.
He has a really different method of working and of teaching that is
taking me some time to get used to but I am still learning a ton. He is a
super cool dude from LA, California and has a lot of experience in the
mission. We get along really well but he speaks a lot of English during
the day, which isn't bad but I'm just not used to being able to talk in
my native language all day every day. So I had to make a rule that we
only speak English in the house that we live. He is a funny surfer type
of guy but he reminds me of Brady Hammond (a guy from our local church
in Moncks Corner) just a couple of years younger. We are focusing on
working more effectively and especially finding more effectively.And we
have seen some amazing results because of it.

Thursday
was the Zone Leader Training meeting and the President of the mission
asked us to join the meeting to demonstrate different methods of finding
investigators through member with the APs (assistants to the President) helping us. We demonstrated
how to teach the first lesson in 5 mins to members and then with the
spirit that was brought with that we transitioned into asking if they
knew someone that could benefit from this message. Even though it was
just a demonstration, the spirit was felt by all who were watching.
Pres. Dalton even had some tears in his eyes. Definitely one of the
coolest experiences in the mission so far and especially for me being so
fresh to it.

We are also getting Erick ready for his baptism and
his wedding. He is as nervous as can be for his wedding but is so
excited for his baptism. He is 28 and is an awesome guy. His future
wife is Nicole and she is 26 and less active. They have both
progressed so much and have turned their lives around because they both
know that what we were teaching them was true!

And then, at last, General Conference was awesome! We had a ton of
investigators show up to watch it. In the gringo room where we watched
in English everybody brought snacks to eat while they watched. I am
especially grateful to watch and listen to conference in English because
I get to hear the speakers real voice and not the translators.